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The theme of the 2017 Dublin Feminist Film Festival is ‘FeministFutures’, films that ask questions about future generations of women, not just related to science and technology, but also on the challenges facing women moving forward and subjects worth considering as things change for women in Ireland and elsewhere. The 2016 documentary Trapped makes for an excellent choice for an opener to the festival in this regard, depicting an urgent reality for women in the United States that has only continued in importance in the face of the considerable political changes in that country since the film’s release. For viewers in Ireland, the film makes for vital viewing as well, delivering the important message that no matter what happens next year with regards to repealing the 8th Amendment, the job of fighting for reproductive rights for women won’t be finished. Those who look to control and restrict the bodily rights of women will not go away.

November 24 -26 will see the return of Dub Web Fest, Ireland’s celebration of online storytelling. Now in its third year, this film festival curated for online programming will have among its programme a MasterClass workshop in editing to be delivered by the experienced and renowned Irish editor Tony Kearns. From advertisements of the likes of Lynx, the Lotto and Playstation to acclaimed music videosincluding ‘Just’ by Radiohead and ‘Firestarter’ by The Prodigy, chances are high that you’ve seen his work, even if you haven’t realised it. More recently, Kearns has edited a number of feature films, including Cardboard Gangsters, the true crime drama set in the heart of Darndale. Film In Dublin spoke with Tony ahead of Dub Web Fest, to get his insights into the editing process.

Attention Irish horror fans! Lock in is an intense psychological horror feature film from writer/director Malcolm Deegan. The film tells the story of Robert O’ Rourke, a recluse who struggles day by day to remember his identity. Closed away from the outside world, Robert is plagued by visions that may or may not be real. Soon Robert awakens into a nightmare that is very real and will change him forever. The film is currently seeking production funding to help complete the project, turning to crowdfunding to ensure their film gets made.

The Dublin Feminist Film Festival celebrates female filmmakers, with the aim of inspiring and empowering more female involvement in filmmaking. The films screened at the festival consider women both on screen and behind it, showcasing stories told by and about women. For four years the festival has showcased great films by women from Ireland and abroad and involved women in film in discussions about their work, and the festival returns November 16 – 18 for a weekend of films that look to the future of women in cinema.

The cinema equivalent of a Coca Cola truck wheeling into town for Dublin film fans, the Light House Cinema’s announcement of their ‘Naughty or Nice’ season heralds the arrival of the Christmas season, just as the Halloween decorations start coming down. The month of December in the Smithfield cinema is dedicated to Christmas classics, with all your favourite Christmas movies available on the big screen. We don’t know about you, but it’s hard not to look at the amazing artwork above by Chris Judge and not feel the excitement and the nostalgia start to flow. The full season has been announced and tickets are already on sale, so the time to start writing to Santa for two tickets to Die Hard is now.

Thor: Ragnarok is fine. This might seem like a needlessly dismissive hot take on a movie that has been popular with critics and a hit at the Irish box office (the film was responsible for over 46% of the Irish 3-day weekend box office), but given the considerable talent involved in the film, both on screen and in the director’s chair, is it spoiled to come out of Marvel’s latest blockbuster? Let’s not be too much of a curmudgeon about this; Ragnarok is a frequently very funny film, one that meets the expectations of its audience, set firmly from that “he’s a friend from work!” trailer, more or less exactly. It is another Marvel movie, and much like pizza, even when they’re not amazing they’re still pretty good. It is what it is. It just could have been more than that.

Nordic noir is something that Hollywood has been trying to crack for many years. Although movies, novels and TV shows on this side of the pond have slashed their way to nordic noir notoriety, Hollywood’s attempts to produce this type of dark, urban-based crime fiction hasn’t produced many results.

Expectations were high, however, when news broke of The Snowman; a Jo Nesbø novel adaptation directed by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy director Tomas Alfredson, starring Michael Fassbender and produced by none other than Martin Scorsese. On paper The Snowman should be a masterpiece. In reality, it couldn’t be further from one.

For years with both The Thick of It and Veep, Armando Iannucci has brilliant and bitterly skewed the nature of politicians in the West, bumbling self-servingly from scandal to scandal, always better equipped at putting down each other than accomplishing anything on their own. Applying that style of satire to Soviet Russia seems like a recipe for great comedy, but the stakes are rather different in a political climate where no one is allowed to admit that scandals ever happened and putting down political rivals meant a few feet underground rather than a few creatively chosen swear words. Staging the aftermath of Josef Stalin’s death similarly to the events of an episode of one of those programmes results in a black comedy that’s frequently very funny, but the satire here has a somber note too. That the people in charge of a superpower could be as arrogant and incompetent as those shuffled off to The Thick of It‘s Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship has some fairly chilling implications. Thank Christ we don’t have to worry about anything like that these days.

The stunningly beautiful Song of Granite which is Ireland’s submission for the Foreign Language category at next year’s Academy Awards will be released in Irish cinemas on 8th December. Wildcard Distribution, who are distributing the film, have released the official trailer and an image from the film. Watch the trailer here:

The biopic from acclaimed filmmaker Pat Collins (Silence) charts the rise of traditional Irish folk singer Joe Heaney, and how the songs of his west of Ireland childhood helped shape his complex character. Co-written by Collins, Eoghan Mac Giolla Bhríde, and Sharon Whooley, the film had its world premiere at this year’s SXSW Film Festival and was awarded the Best Cinematography prize (Richard Kendrick) at the Galway Film Fleadh.

Enigmatic and complex, Joe Heaney was one of the greats of traditional Irish singing (sean nós). Shaped by the myths, fables, and songs of his upbringing in the west of Ireland, his emergence as a gifted artist came at a personal cost. Featuring performances from Colm Seoighe, Macdara Ó’Fátharta, Jaren Cerf, Lisa O’Neill, Damien Dempsey, and sean nós singers Micheál O’Confhaola and Pól Ó Ceannabháin, and beautiful black and white cinematography, Song of Granite is a distinctive portrait of Heaney’s life and a marvellous exploration of music and song.

The film was produced by Alan Maher and Jessie Fisk of Marcie Films with Martin Paul-Hus of Amerique Film and was supported by Bord Scannán na hÉireann/Irish Film Board, BAI, TG4 and with the financial participation of Société de Développement Des Entreprises Culturelles – Québec, Telefilm Canada.